The iPad Air is the long-serving middle child of Apple’s tablet lineup, and while mid-tier devices in the iPhone and Mac ranges have come and gone, the iPad Air has managed to hold down its position and shows no signs of leaving any time soon.
In fact, unlike the cursed mid-tier iPhone (think the iPhone mini, iPhone Plus, and dare I say it, the iPhone Air?), the iPad Air is the furthest thing from experimental. You take a base-model iPad, throw an M-series chipset in there, give it a 13-inch option, and boom: you’ve got one of the best iPads.
That’s been the formula for a few years now – more hardware power than a standard tablet without any of the design or display upgrades exclusive to the iPad Pro – all of which makes recent rumors of a major display upgrade for the iPad Air all the more surprising.
Once again, I am asking Apple to give another of its devices a ProMotion display.
For reference, ProMotion is how Apple brands its variable refresh rate displays. Refresh rate refers to how often a display redraws the on-screen image. The current-gen iPad Air has a 60Hz display. ProMotion displays, like the one on the iPad Pro, automatically modulate between 1Hz and 120Hz depending on the amount of movement on-screen – and that maximum 120Hz creates a much smoother experience.
In the past, asking Apple to fit the iPad Air with a ProMotion display might have seemed like a slightly pointless request; variable refresh rate panels were, up until recently, only found on devices with a Pro title – the iPad Pro, iPhone Pro and Pro Max, and MacBook Pro, to be exact.
However, with the release of the iPhone 17 series, Apple extended ProMotion to a non-Pro device for the first time by giving the standard iPhone 17 a ProMotion panel, which, in conjunction with those aforementioned new display upgrade rumors, gives me real hope that the iPad Air could be next.
Though the iPad Air’s 60Hz LCD display is nice enough, it’s perhaps the only thing holding the tablet back from true greatness. The M3 chipset is more than powerful enough for iPadOS, so much so that the vast majority of users won’t feel the difference between it and the iPad Pro’s M5 chipset. The Air’s design, while not as thin as the iPad Pro, is time-tested and pragmatic. And its accessory choices are excellent, with support for the Apple Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard.
If Apple were to equip the iPad Air with ProMotion while retaining its starting price of $599 / £599 / AU$999 for the 11-inch model and $799 / £799 / AU$1,349 for the 13-inch model, it’d get my recommendation for all but the most budget-conscious users or the most power-focused professionals. Apple has shown renewed willingness to equip its everyday devices with Pro-grade tech – now it’s the iPad Air’s turn.
The tough part is that Gurman’s report suggests we might not see any kind of display upgrade for the iPad Air until after the expected 2026 refresh, as the iPad mini is apparently the priority (a great tablet in its own right, but not as universal as the larger iPad Air). Let us know if you want to see OLED and ProMotion come to the iPad mini or iPad Air in the comments below.
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jamie.richards@futurenet.com (Jamie Richards)
